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An American flag that was apparently stolen from outside of a South Lake Tahoe home a week before Memorial Day is more than just stars and stripes.

The large, heavy cloth flag, taken from outside of the Glorene Avenue home of South Lake Tahoe resident Adele Bachman, was a symbol of her late-husband Julius “Whitey” Bachman’s service and patriotism, Bachman said Friday. Fitzhenry’s Carson Valley Funeral Home gave Adele the flag following Bachman’s 2005 death from a heart attack, she said. Whitey Bachman, named because of his white hair from a young age, served in the Navy for three years, deploying to the South Pacific near the end of World War II.

“It just seems kind of ridiculous for someone walking by on the street to take that flag,” Bachman said Friday.

The retired educational testing service employee said she had family members put up a flagpole up about a year ago so she could see the flag from her bedroom window. She was sitting at her bedroom window Monday morning just prior to the flag disappearing. She stepped away for a few minutes and saw the flag had been taken.

“It was just gone like that,” said Bachman’s daughter, Alain Mozley.

Bachman said she has more flags than she can count, and raised flag another after her husband’s was taken. But it is not the same quality or size and does not have the same sentimental value for Bachman.

“We’re just patriotic, we’ve always flown a flag,” she said.

The apparent theft was reported to police. Bachman would like the flag back, but doubts she’ll ever see it again.

“I just thought it was pretty stupid for someone to walk by and steal an American flag,” Bachman said.